Cries Of The Fallen
by T.j.98
Summary: Gale Hawthorne is fifty years old, and because of a terminal illness he will die in five more years. After the uprising, Gale turned bitter and alienated everybody. Now he would rather forget the awful things he did in the past. But he must answer for his transgressions, and when he does will he be able to make amends before it is too late? (ON HOLD FOR NOW)
1. Chapter 1:Gale Hawthorne

Gale and Katniss had no relationship. There is no doubt whatever about that. Gale moved to District 2, than to District 4, but never returned to District 12. Katniss, like most of the other people Gale knew before and during the war, had no idea what happened to Gale. For all she knew, he could be dead as a doornail.

It should be noted I have no idea, to my knowledge, what is particularly dead about a doornail. I might be inclined, myself, to regard a fired bullet or an exploded artillery shell as the deadest piece of metalworking in the trade. But there is ancestral wisdom in the simile; and it is not for my unsanctified hands to to disturb it, or Panem will surely crumble.

Was Gale alone? Of course he was! His younger brother Rory Hawthorne was the only person who wold even tolerate his presence, and it's been that way for I don't know how many years. Rory Hawthorne was his sole sibling, his sole immediate relative, and his sole friend. Even Rory only kept his older brother company out of more a sense of familial duty than actual affection.

But this leads back to the starting of origin. There is no doubt that Gale Hawthorne is alone, that must be understood for this story to have any significance. If Gale were not alone, than there would be nothing so set apart from the ordinary about him receiving a visit from someone in his past.

Gale Hawthorne seemed to carry a shadow over him, one that was growing for nearly four decades. No winter frost was colder than he was, and no summer sun could warm him. His heart was in effect frozen.

People certainly knew this, as nobody ever asked Gale Hawthorne the directions to a locality, nor did anyone ever inquire as to which hour of the day it was, and it seemed even the animals kept their distance from him.

But it is not like he cared. He did not mind that people avoided him, as he was loathe of any and all company. He did not mind that some people demanded his head, as he believed the actions of the past should be left there and that they ceased to matter.

Upon a time -just a day seemingly insignificant from days of the past- old Gale Hawthorne sat busy in his office. Like any other day, he was counting through the mail. He read one of the letters, one that he got from the hospital. It read that the test results were indeed confirmed, and he did have terminal cancer.

It was now that he heard a ringing of the phone from the hallway.

He shuffled to the home phone and picked up the line.

"Hello Gale, its Rory."

"What do you want." he growled.

"Just checking up on you."

"You bother me enough as it is."

"Surely you don't mean that."

"I do" said Gale, "Checking up on me! What right have you to be concerned with me? What reason are you concerned? Mind your own business, poor enough."

"What right do you have to be so dismal? Your rich enough."

Having no better answer, Gale simply grumbled.

"Don't be so down!"

"What else can I be?" returned Gale, "when I live in a nation of fools."

"Gale!" Pleaded Rory softly.

"Rory!" Returned Gale, "mind your own business, and let me mind mine."

"Please, I haven't seen you in person for years; come over to have dinner with us."

Gale laughed at this, the laugh erupting rough his whole body. This was the first time he laughed in half a decade.

"Why must you laugh at me? I was serious."

"Why did you get married?"

"Because I fell in love."

"Because you fell in love." Gale said this with unmasked contempt. "There's no such thing as love."

"Gale, this was never your reason before. Why now?"

"Goodbye."

"I don't ask anything of you; I don't want anything from you; why can't we be close like we used to be?"

"Goodbye."

"It makes me sad. I have never by my own knowledge said anything to

Before Gale could sit down to return to his paperwork, there came a knocking at the door. Two kindly and pleasant looking gentlemen stood at the door when Gale answered it. They carried books in their hands, and smiled.

"Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Hawthorne?"

"Yes, now who do I have the displeasure of addressing?"

"We are from the Victims of War Organization. As you know, many people on both sides were hurt in the war. Millions were left crippled by things like snare bombs and poison gas, and there are millions who have someone missing in their lives. Most of these struggle to support their families."

"Are there still prisons and jail houses."

"Yes, plenty of prisons."

"Are there still breadlines."

"Yes."

"There is still the Retired Soldier Administration and there is still Welfare?"

"Yes, both busy."

"Oh, good. You had me worried that they had somehow shut down and necessitated people to go around begging for money like a dog at a table."

"While both Administrations are doing their best, they are unable to reach everybody. We are working to raise funds for those who are still unable to make ends meet because of injuries accrued during wartime."

"Your wasting your time."

"You mean you won't help them?"

"I mean I want to be left alone. I am not about to give my hard earned money to help people crippled in a war that should be left in history books. The ones who fought for the rebels knew what they were getting into, and the ones who fought against them deserve what they got. In any case, it happened long enough ago that it no longer matters. They should just get a job."

"Many are unable to work."

"Than they should just die."

"I'm sorry you feel that way. Have a good day."

After they left, Gale slammed the door and returned to his office.


	2. Chapter 2:The visitor

Gale sat on the sofa in his dusty and empty home. As he watched the screen of his television, a grimace arose on his face.

On the television was an old man in a white uniform. Like many other loyalists after the war, he left Panem and was taken to one of the corners of the Belgium colonial empire. While other nations at first wanted nothing to do with leftovers of the old regime, Belgium saw this as a great economic opportunity. This is how the majority of the surviving loyalist population agreed to indentured servitude in exchange for citizenship in and transportation to the Belgium colonial empire. This, combined with the habit of loyalists to stick together, resulted in peacekeepers becoming a culture similar to the ancient Cossacks who once roamed the steppe of what is now the Slavic Confederation.

The man on the television called for the prosecution of war criminals who fought on the side of the rebellion. One name that stood out to Gale was his own; he was being accused of crimes against humanity.

Gale growled and turned off the television.

He was not a war criminal. So what if he destroyed the Nut? And so what if he made snare bombs? It happened in the past and should be left there.

These things Gale Hawthorne thought to himself.

After deciding to skip dinner, Gale got ready for bed. He pulled off his clothes and dressed himself in his pajamas and nightcap.

It was raining and thundering outside, so Gale decided to light a fire in his fireplace. The fireplace was carved by the whaler who lived here long ago, and it was as ancient and rotted as the house was. Gale was not young anymore, and it had been so long since he hunted or even entered the woods that he did not remember how to do either of those anymore; but Gale could still light a fire.

Sitting in a chair, the fifty two year old man brooded over the fire, trying to recall memories of his youth, of a time when he crouched before similar fires in the untamed woods.

Gale grimaced at these thoughts.

After a while he nodded off, and allowed himself to slide into sleep.

Gale has no memory of falling asleep, but he did wake up. The fire was completely and thoroughly dead, the windows that were previously shut were now all wide open, the rain had been replaced with an icy and forceful wind, and Gale at first did not notice the man standing under the shadows of a corner of the room.

When the man stepped into view, Gale noticed him but could not believe what he saw. In fact, he refused to believe it.

But no matter how incredulous Gale was, the man was still standing before him. The man wore a uniform that looks like it once belonged to a peacekeeper, but instead of white it was black; almost as though it were dyed by ash and soot. The visor of his helmet shone like the dying flames of a dying fire, so the face of the man could not be seen. All he while, it looked as though the darkness of night itself was constantly over the man regardless of where he was.

"Who are you?"

The mans voice was cold and unfeeling, as he is only a shadow of the man he was while he was one of the living.

"I don't see why you care now; there were so many of us and you never cared before."

"You mean, I killed you?"

"I am not the first or the last person you killed; I am not even the closest person to you that you killed."

"I don't believe it. If you're real than you should be in the ground, not here!"

"Have you gotten so untrusting that your own senses are under suspicion?"

"I believe what my senses tell me, its just that right now they're lying. You're more a symptom of fever than anything else."

The peacekeeper stood up, standing high above Gale. The wind blew until it made a foul and inhuman shriek, and the man spoke with such thunder that it shook Gale from his swagger.

"I am here! Look upon me!"

The winds shook Gale with such fury that he cowered. "Please, stop. Why do you torment me?"

"I exist, I am here, and I was once alive! We were people who lived and laughed and loved: you will ignore us no longer!"

"Why are you here? What have I done to deserve this?"

At this, the shade began to laugh a cruel and cynical laugh. Once he finished, he exclaimed.

"You do not deserve this. In the years that you have degraded the world with your pathetic and destructive existence, you have not a single time proved worthy of what I bring you. You deserve to spend eternity in damnation's halls, drowning in a lake of all the blood you have spilled. What you are about to experience is by no definition of the word something you deserve."

Gale was frantic, pleading with anger and fear. "Then why are you hare?"

"I am here to show you how foolishly and wickedly you have wasted the opportunity that is life, so that you might make amends before the light within you grows cold."

"I don't want to. I have nothing to make amends for."

At this the shade again laughed his cynical laugh which filled the cavern-like halls of Hawthorne's District 4 manor.

With sarcasm, the shade replied. "If you believe that, than you will have no worry about following me."

Gale followed the shade down the hallway leading to the front door, asking as he went. "Where are you taking me?"

As the shade threw open the door, he turned back to Gale. Though his visor was oblique, Gale could sense that the shade was glaring with his cold lifeless eyes.

"The places I am taking you are places you have already been."


	3. Chapter 3:Peeta and Katniss

Gale Hawthorne followed the shade, he was aware that he could not see anything more than five feet away in any direction. Streets that were well known to him were not present.

"Are you happy with how your life turned out?"

Gale was taken aback by this.

"What kind of question is that? Of course-"

Gale could not finish the sentence, as he previously never thought about it. He had not been happy in so long that he no longer knew what it was to be happy or unhappy.

"When you were sixteen did you imagine that when you were fifty you would be alone, unwed, and disowned by two of your three siblings? Did you imagine that the only woman in your life would be the ones you saw at the brothel before you grew sick of it around your forties? Did you imagine you'd spend your twenty fifth birthday with a gun in your mouth, trying to dig up the courage to pull the trigger?"

Gale was angry at this remark, but could not call them lies. "Maybe my life wasn't perfect, but I was a fool for thinking I even needed a family."

"Lets see how some of your old friends are doing."

"What do you mean?"

The Peacekeeper grabbed Gale by the forearm, and with the shifting of the shadows they were in the home of Peeta Mellark and his beloved wife.

Katniss and Peeta were both in their fifties, but they did not look it. Nor could one tell from first glance that they fought in a war; reguardless of how the two Victors saw themselves at first (which was through a lens of mental breakdown), a combination of the best medical science Panem had (and Panem lead the world in medical science even then) left no physical scarring. Over the years, the mental and emotional scars faded; Katniss and Peeta were able to enjoy the lives that they fought hard for.

Peeta and Katniss were eating dinner in their home, with them were their five children and their seven grandchildren.

All five of their grandchildren had comfortable careers. Willow, the eldest child at age thirty one, was not only happily married herself but was also a moderately successful doctor. Rye, who was a year younger than his older sister, had a moderately successful career as a lawyer and as a husband. Jerry, who was named after his maternal grandfather, has lived for twenty five years and was able to be a wealthy businessman and get engaged during his spare time. Max, who was named after his paternal grandfather, is the same age as his twin brother Jerry but became a Captain in the Panem Navy and got married during his twenty five years. Emily, the youngest child at age twenty two, is a teacher in District 12.

As Katniss and Peeta's children and grandchildren prepared their dinner, Gale watched. He felt cheated out of the family he should have had. Yet paradoxically, he also felt that he did not want or need this.

Gale opened his mouth to speak, but the shade grasped his shoulder roughly. Instead of asking what the point in showing him this was, Gale simply said the following.

"I didn't know she had kids."

The shade replied, "Of course you didn't, you haven't spoken to each other in decades. Now just listen."

Peeta asked his son a question with a smile. "So Rye, how's being a lawyer?"

Rye replied with good humored teasing, "It's good; it may not be the Carib islands, but a peaceful office suits me."

Max laughed a little, "At least there are no Mosquitos in your office; at least I hope there are none."

This banter went on a little bit, but eventually they said grace. Once it was over they started eating and talking.

Gale was taken off guard by this. "I didn't know they converted. "

The shade gestured for him to listen.

After some more conversation, somehow a few of Peeta and Katniss's grandchildren kept pleading with their grandfather to tell them 'the story'. The fact that they don't elaborate suggests the whole family heard this story multiple times.

After feigning memory loss, Peeta complied.

"Well, okey. I'll tell the story."

The whole table became quiet with apprehension as they listened to the story.

"Well, once upon a time, when Rye and Willow were still babies, I was walking down the street to bring back groceries. Then, all of the sudden, I felt a momentum hit me in the back and fling me forward at extreme speeds. Within a few seconds, I went from walking on the street to impaled on someone's iron fence. I was hit by a car that was going way too fast. I was sure I was going to die, and all I could think about was my family. But my luck must have turned on while I was in the air because I wouldn't be here if that fence wasn't there to keep my head from hitting the ground, nor would I have been here if the iron point on the fence didn't just miss my heart, nor would I have been here if an empty ambulance wasn't driving by at that time, or if the hospital didn't have my blood type. I not only survived, but I made a full recovery and was out of the hospital in just three months."

Rye said simply, "divine intervention saved you."

Peeta replied, "My faith wasn't gained through sudden epiphany; Katniss and I were already thinking about it for a long time before that, it just sped it up."

Katniss said, "It also confirmed my assumption that you are the luckiest man on the Earth."

Peeta wrapped his arm around her, "I already figured that out when you agreed to marry me."

Peeta was not talking about the show they put on for a now defunct regime, he was talking about their real marriage. Five years after the fall of the Capitol, they got married. It was a small and simple wedding.

It also produced a big family.

Peeta and Katniss had a happy life. Since their kids supported them, they were able to retire early (though Peeta still works at the bakery because of how much he likes to). Their spare time is spent painting (though Katniss usually just watches her husband paint), hunting (Peeta, like his first and third son, is not good at hunting; he still likes to be in the woods and try), and enjoying themselves. Peeta and Katniss were very healthy for their age, and could both live for thirty or even forty more years.

As the Mellark family ate dinner and talked and laughed, Gale watched with bitterness. Though he had enough envy to turn his eyes green, he was too proud to admit it to the shade.

"I've seen enough, take me home."

"No. You've only just began to see what you need to."

"I said take me home!"

The shade grabbed Gale by the forearm, and they were taken away.

But they did not go home.


	4. Chapter 4:Rory Hawthorne

When Gale and the Shade landed, they were inside the home of Rory Hawthorne. It was a quiet District 7 home, and it was peaceful. Rory was eating dinner with his wife, his son was not there because he grew up and joined the army.

His wife asked him a question when he seemed glum. "Honey, is something wrong?"

His response came after hesitation. "I talked to Gale today."

His concerned wife muttered. "I don't know why you bother with him. He's not going to change."

Rory chuckled, but his eyes betrayed his real feelings. "You sound just like Posy and Vick."

Unlike Rory, Gale's other two siblings have long since ceased to waste energy attempting to stir him from his bitterness. Even Rory does not actually think Gale will change; he is simply fulfilling the duty of a sibling.

"But why do you bother with him?"

Rory sighed with melancholy. "He's my brother. I am obligated to check up on him and keep in touch. I'll do so with the hope he'll lighten up, even though I know he won't. It could also be because I pity him; going through life the way he does is not a good way to do it."

"Why is he so bitter?"

"If I knew I'd tell you. Must be because of something that happened during the war?"

"We all suffered during the war; that's not an excuse for him to mope his life away."

"I hope he doesn't. Until the day he dies, I'll still hold out hope that I can see him again. I haven't seen him in person for over a decade, and it is not easy to imagine what he must look like based on a picture."

"You must miss him."

"I do."

While Gale was watching this conversation, he sighed glumly. He wondered how Rory would react if he knew his older brother will die in five years.

The Shade turned to look at Gale, asking him. "Is there something wrong?"

"No ... its just ... I wish I had told Rory something during my last conversation with him."

"We should go now. There is still much to do."

When Gale said nothing, the Shade grabbed his forearm and the surroundings shifted once again.


	5. Chapter 5:Annie

Gale and the Peacekeeper Shade landed on the ground, they were now in a Victor's Mansion in District 4. Outside was a warm costal rain which buffeted against the windows. At the door stood a forty year old man in the uniform of a Captain of the Panem Navy; he was holding an umbrella.

The man looked remarkably like his father, having blond hair and bright eyes. Annie opened the door and was happy to see that the person waiting there was her son.

"Finn!"

"Mother!"

The man embraced his mother in a hug. After said hug, she invited him inside. Unannounced to them, Gale and the Peacekeeper followed them inside.

"Mother, the Pacific really is wonderful; I have a lot of stories to tell you."

The shade said to Gale, "I bet you didn't know Annie had a son." Gale realized that he had not only not kept in touch, he did not even think about the people who played such an important role in his life.

Annie led her son to the fireplace, and gestured for him to sit down in the vacant chair. She sat down in the chair next to it, and they talked. Annie asked her son several question: how was he doing, was he taking care of himself, was he maintaining good hygiene, did he keep himself out of danger, and did he enjoy being in the Navy.

Gale looked how happy Annie appeared in her interaction with her son, and wondered how it was possible for her to not have anger and hate in her. While it is true that Annie was hurt while in the games, and while in prison, it is also true that she has a loving son and a good life.

Gale remembered his mother, and felt an emptiness. He had not been a good son in the last years of his mothers life, and until now he did not feel bad about the time he spent away from her.

The shade turned to Gale and said. "We should go to see the next person."


	6. Chapter 6:Mr Hawthorne

Gale and the Shade were in front of a house. It was a small and crudely built house, and it's walls were coated on the outside with the coal that blows on the wind. It was lathe December, and the snow that blew in the coal-choked wind was grey and white.

If Gale did not realize where he was, he did once he saw a man walking down the street towards the house. The man had black hair and tanned skin like Gale once had in his youth; in fact the man bore a distinct resemblance to Gale.

The man's name was Mr. Hawthorne.

"That's my father. I was a boy here."

The Shade, upon hearing Gale's soft whispers, simply nodded.

They walked inside, and in the kitchen the watched as Mr. Hawthorne sat down at the kitchen table next to a dark haired boy in a gawky youth if fourteen.

"Hi there son. Im back from work."

"Oh good, I missed you."

"Well, you don't need to; I'll always be with you."

"Where's your mother?"

"She's asleep; my sister is tiring her out."

"She won't be as tiring once she's born. But when your mother wakes up, tell her to look in the kitchen: I brought Posies home."

"If the baby is a girl, can we name her Posy?"

"Maybe. I do like that name."

Mr. Hawthorne looked first up in thought, than down at his son's paperwork.

"What are you working on?"

"The teacher is making us do math homework. I can't get it, and he said if I don't do my homework he'll hit me with a switch."

"Well, let's see what we can do about this. See these? These are called variables. You use them when you don't know what the number is."

"You're really smart."

"Well, I learned math from my dad."

"What's this mean?"

"This one is a multiplication symbol, that means you multiply the numbers."

Step by step, Mr. Hawthorne explained the homework to his son Gale. He had a comforting tenderness in his voice, and it reassured young Gale.

Old Gale, watching this, felt his heart thumping for the first time in three asked the Shade a question.

"When was this?"

The Shade's reply shook Gale out of his good mood and horrified him.

"This was in late December of the year sixty nine."

"You mean this was only a week before he died?"

The Shade replied coldly, "I don't see why you care; it happened so long ago that it doesn't matter anymore."

"How can you say that; Dad was a loving person with a family that depended on him. When he died people missed him. It will always matter to those who knew and loved and were loved by him. He is a real person."

When Gale rebutted, he realized halfway through that the Shade simply threw his own sentiment back at him.

The Shade coldly called Gale out on his hypocrisy.

"Some example he set for you. I can assure you of one thing: if your father saw what you became he would be glad he died."

At this, Gale again became angry. But this time his anger was mixed with a little fear.

"That's not true! Take it back!"

"Compare how your father lived to how you live. Do you think he would be proud of some of your choices?"

"Why wouldn't he?!"

"I'll show you."

Again, the Peacekeeper Shade grabbed Gale's forearm, and the surroundings shifted again.


	7. Chapter 7:Empathy and sympathy

They are in the crowded district square of District 12, on a day that passes into memory so many years ago.

All across Panem, people gather to wait in the hope that they or their loved ones are not the ones chosen for probable death.

Little children fumble with the hands of their older siblings, hoping they are not reaped.

Adults watch in earnest and undisguised fear, listening to see if the child being named is their own.

Anyone with a religious faith (one that they secretly kept within their heart's confines so as to avoid martyrdom) already offered up their morning prayers to plead for protection.

In districts, names are chosen and many are reaped.

This year, there are seven volunteers.

Gale and the Peacekeeper Shade watched from the platform as the events unfolded. The former was beginning to grimace because he remembered what happened this day.

The latter nudged him on the shoulder. "Today's not about you. Quit being a self-obsessed prick and pay attention to the different reactions."

Gale, while wanting to come up with a retort of some type, was not able to in time. The reaping had already began.

The person pulling the names out of the raffle tubs did so in a mood that did not have the solemness of such an event.

"Primrose Everdeen."

As the name was selected, Peacekeepers marched over to collect the tribute.

Doing as the Peacekeeper Shade told him to, Gale Hawthorne looked at the reaction of these peacekeepers; he was surprised by what he saw. He expected the peacekeepers to be cold and callous, or to be gleeful at sending a child t her death. However, he saw that many peacekeepers were either desperately trying to hide their emotions or were not hiding the deep sympathy on their faces. Gale never even considered that Darius and Purnia were not the only peacekeepers who lived and laughed and loved. In essence, Gale never considered that the others were humans who probably were not born with malice in their hearts.

In any case, he hears next what he expects to hear and yet is still surprised by.

"Stop! I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute."

Gale and the Peacekeeper Shade watched as Katniss Everdeen walked up to the platform. Despite the fact that they both know how this will end, Gale still flinches as he watches the events unfold.

"Why are you showing me this?"

The Shade did not answer, at least not in a vocal way. Instead, with his long strides, he pulled Gale through the doors of the Justice Building just before it was closing shut. They were able to slip into the visitors rooms.

However, the shade was not leading Gale where he thought he was. At least, not without a detour.

"You're going the wrong way. Katniss is in that room."

"She'll still be there when we get back, dont worry. These are shadows; events that have long passed into the fog of memories."

They were inside the male tribute room.

Gale was angry that he was being made to watch the person whom he envied so immensely. This envy stemmed from the fact that the man in this room would go on to not only go on to obtain the hand in marriage of the woman Gale felt he was entitled to, but would also go on to have a family and be happy.

Just as Gale was about to shout in green-eyed anger, he saw what the Shade wanted to snow him.

Upon the floor in the abandoned room sat a young man. His face was buried in the upward palms of his hands as he sobbed. The sobs sounded like the sounds of an animal that had been mortally wounded and was near death.

The blond haired boy believed that this would be how it ended. He had no reason to suspect anything other than that he was in the last few pages of a life story characterized with violence and parental abuse which go all the way back to the time he was born.

As Gale watched the blond haired boy wail in lamentation of the darkness that was closing around him, he could feel a portion of the pain that the boy felt.

A worse feeling yet, Gale felt shame. Shame that he suffered much less in comparison and yet never thought about the suffering of even people he knew.

"I ... I never realized what he went through."

"You mean you never realized how self obsessed you have been all these years. But it would do you good to remember that this is not even the start of it."

"Don't need to remind me."

"The fact that I am even here is indisputable evidence that I do need to remind you."

Gale opened his mouth to rebut this, but no words could come out or even form. After failing twice, the Shade just gestured for him to watch.

Though only a few minutes passed, it felt like hours to Gale.

"When is his mother coming?"

"She's already did."

"She left him like this?"

"She told him that he was going to die alone and that nobody would miss him.

This shocks Gale, who had a good mother. He remembers his mother's funeral, and felt shame that he had not seen his own mother in the last years of her life. He also felt shame that he did not pay any attention to his siblings at the funeral. It is with fear and shame that Gale asks the next question.

"Is nobody really going to visit him?"

The Shade does not answer, or at least not with words. Instead, he lets what happens next answer the question for him.

A man walked into the room. Upon seeing his son sobbing on the ground, the man knelt down beside him and with a gentle voice he provided comfort. Comfort which the boy's mother, who was nowhere in sight, denied him on every single occasion where it was needed.

"It's okey. It's okey. Daddy's here for you."

Mr. Mellark held his sobbing son close to him with one hand, and with the other he gently cracked the head of his son. Mr. Mellark made a cooing sound to calm his son.

There are sometimes situations when one feels helpless and alone like a young child. It is in these times that the loving warmth of a parent is needed most.

The Shade addressed Gale. "Does this evoke sympathy in you?"

"Yes."

"Why? It did not make you feel sympathy all those years ago when it happened."

Gale was about to deny what the Shade said, but he realized that he would be lying if he said it was not true.

When Gale watched Peeta on reaping day, he only felt disgust with this person whom he'd never met and knew nothing about. Gale considered Peeta pathetic and weak, without even considering how he would react upon being reaped.

When Gale was silent, the Shade asked another question.

"Was it because you did not know him and so he meant nothing to you, or was it because you did not know that he spent every day of his life being beaten and abused by his mother whenever his father was not around to witness and stop it?"

Gale again was silent. Eventually he could force out an answer. "I ... I guess both."

"You had no idea how lucky you are to have had what you did, but you are too blind and too self-absorbed to see it."

After a while, they walked to the next room.

The shade was right, as Katniss just recently entered the room.


End file.
